Pumpkinpalooza

Yesterday morning I took out some pork chops to thaw without knowing how exactly I was going to prepare them last night. So, I browsed foodnetwork.com until I found something that tickled my fancy - Maple-Glazed Pork Chops with Pumpkin Polenta. Anything with pumpkin in it sounds good to me this time of year.

Luckily, I just happened to have some frozen sage on hand to start it all out. I sauteed it in the same large pan I intended to cook the pork chops in instead of in a separate small pan like the recipe suggests, saving a little clean up time later. Next, I got the two cups of milk and two cups chicken broth boiling, and contemplated the wonder of 2/3 of a cup of polenta absorbing all that.

Like the action shot? My toaster made a handy tripod as a I slowly whisked the polenta into the liquid.

I whisked occasionally as I let it cook for 15 minutes on low and started gathering the rest of the ingredients.

It still didn't look like it could absorb even more stuff, but it was time to add the pumpkin, parmesan, and sauteed sage.

It did actually mix in nicely, but then I was left with a half cup of pumpkin from the can. What was I going to do with that scant amount? A quick perusal of my cookbook collection led me to Pumpkin Biscuits from the 2004 Cooking Light compendium. It uses exactly half a cup of pumpkin, and I thought they would complement the rest of dinner nicely.

It makes a really gooey dough, which you then have to roll out.

Good God! This is going to be messy. A lot of flour went towards the cause.

Note the smears of pumpkiny goo on the counter. My hands and my rolling pin quickly became encrusted, but, using a light touch, I managed to roll it out and cut out some biscuits.

I got more biscuits than the recipe said I would, thus the unusual placement scheme on the tray. Those went into the 450deg oven while I focused on the pork chops.

I used a fairly thick bone-in pork chop, so I cooked them a little longer on each side than the recipe called for, and then removed them to this plate, with a smaller plate upside down on top of it. Then, I could easily capture any juices to add back into the sauce.

The sauce quickly came to a boil,

and became syrupy right away, which wasn't surprising since there was 1/4 cup of maple syrup in there.

The biscuits were ready just behind the sauce, and then it was time to plate.

Pretty, isn't it? Well, maybe that nearly black sauce isn't all that pretty. But it all tasted really good. If I changed anything, I think I might reduce or completely eliminated the balsamic vinegar from the sauce, which really overpowered the sweetness of the maple syrup. The polenta was delicious comfort food, and I ate extra helpings. I liked the flavor of the biscuits, but the texture was a little odd. The pumpkin must weigh it down because they weren't flaky like a traditional biscuit but more dense like a muffin. I probably should have made the orange honey butter to go with it, because the biscuit's own flavor is quite subtle.

And then, I had a lot of clean up to do. I think there might still be pumpkin dough cemented to my counter.